April D2L Updates (v 20.19.4)

The April update will hit PPCC Online on Friday, April 19th. The good news is, there aren’t too many big updates this month. However, there are a couple of pesky bugs we are working and there are a few other announcements I want to pass along this month.

Updates

D2L is changing the numbering system. The version number will identify the month it is scheduled to go live. April 2019 is 20.19.4.

You can now create a QuickLink to a Rubric from any place where the the HTML editor is present. This has often been requested as now you can put Rubric links pretty much anywhere you want.

Bugs

Notifications

Notifications continue being delayed in being sent to SMS and email. If you experience a delay longer than three hours of a Notification, please send a screenshot of the message, when it was sent, and what carrier you are using. I’ll add it to the long list of delayed Notifications.

My Courses Alerts

Multiple instructors have reported the orange numbers within the course tiles of the My Courses widget are missing at times. So, when they check their courses, it appears no one has posted to the Discussions, but when going into the courses, they have. D2L thinks this is related to the browser cache, so be sure to clear it from time to time. However, if you clear the cache and still see the issue, please send me an email with the details and I’ll add it to the ticket.

WebEx Integration with D2L

WebEx integration to D2L continues to be a problem on two fronts. First, the timezone of the meetings is… well unpredictable. We’ve seen MDT, EDT and even UTC. Secondly, CCCS still has the permission turned on which will allow students to create meetings and invite any user with an email address. Multiple Deans have expresssed concerns with this level of permission. With both issues remaining, we are holding off the integration of WebEx with D2L.

However, if you want to hold WebEx meetings for your students, that still works. Schedule the meeting at https://cccs-meetings.webex.com (Email login required) and then share the link within D2L. This is the method used by PPCC instructors since we went to WebEx several years ago.

Announcements

The 20.19.4 update is the last update that will occur during the SP19 term. We have some quality of life changes coming in May, but nothing nearly as big as Daylight/Email was last year. More details on those next month after testing is complete.